Mechanics of success

Spearheaded by IITs, engineering education in the country is undergoing a transformation-extending its footprint globally and inspiring students to be job creators instead of job seekers.

Delhi
May 24, 2018

ISSUE DATE: June 4, 2018

UPDATED:
May 27, 2018 13:47 IST

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The Nanoscale Research Facility at IIT Delhi. Photo: Yasir Iqbal

Engineering is all about finding solutions to various problems by optimally using the resources available to us. With immense changes taking place in our higher education institutions, particularly the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), one can expect a major transformation in these institutions in the next five years. For the country's progress, creativity in our higher education sector is as important as literacy at the grassroots.

Here are the top five drivers of change:

Job seekers to job providers: While the IITs attracted the best talent from all over the country to its programmes, they were largely successful in churning out graduates who were job seekers rather than job providers. Though exceptions exist in terms of over a dozen unicorns created by the IIT alumni, one must keep in mind that many of these unicorns were created by the alumni on foreign soil. It is also true that India for a long time lacked the ecosystem for start-ups and mainly survived on imported goods and technologies. This is changing. For example, one in four students at IIT Delhi is keen to start a company after graduation. This has necessitated the institute to undertake major changes in the curriculum and bring in more and more 'minor' programmes covering diverse streams of engineering, courses on economics, deferred placement schemes, student start-up schemes, multi-disciplinary training modules, etc.

The institute is also in the process of launching a Minor Programme in Entrepreneurship. In addition, multiple society-connect initiatives were launched to expose students to problems in the real world. Immersion programmes, where students get to work in diverse environments such as hospitals, rural areas and industries, were also undertaken. Creativity is about connecting the dots, and exposing students to diverse experiences and environments is a key requirement to instil confidence in them so that they can chart their own course in life. Faculty mentorship plays a major role in this. Many faculty members have been successful in converting their R&D output into high-tech start-ups. Breaking of silos, creating a culture of cross-disciplinary collaboration and institutional encouragement for group efforts are also seen to play a major role in this transformation. India's problems range from toilets to satellites and both require high-tech solutions, which can be homegrown and nurtured. Many of these solutions that are developed to suit Indian conditions can help solve similar problems in over 90 countries that share economic and social conditions with India.

The IITs are also beginning to recognise the importance of increasing humanities and social sciences in their curriculum. IIT Delhi has one of the finest humanities and social sciences departments in the country. In addition to producing engineers with the necessary skill sets, our institutions have also realised that it is important to instil strong social values and ethics in our graduates. Engineering without empathy is like a mind without a conscience.

The Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) programme recently launched by the HRD ministry is a step towards connecting the R&D output from our higher educational institutions to the problems faced by people in the rural areas. While the start-up culture in these institutions is primarily driven by undergraduate students, there is a need to connect the over 25,000 PhD students enrolled in our higher educational institutions to incubation and entrepreneurship activities.

Globalisation: Today, only about 1 per cent of the student population in an IIT is foreign. Given the high demand for IIT education in the country, IITs never needed to look for foreign students nor did they bother to tweak their admission processes to suit foreigners. In the process, our students missed out on the cultural diversity that exists in top universities abroad. This has also been affecting IIT's global rankings. Now, for the first time in the past couple of years, two of the IIT main entrance exams-Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE)-have gone global. These exams are now conducted in multiple countries. The HRD ministry's recently-launched Study in India programme is also expected to make a big difference to cultural diversity on our campuses. The goal is to have at least 10 per cent of students in our campuses from outside India. Concerted efforts are being made to achieve this target in the next few years. The norms to hire faculty from other countries have also been simplified recently by the ministry-the IITs are keen to fill some of the faculty vacancies through such hiring.

Anywhere-anytime learning: IITs have taken to online education in a major way. For example, the NPTEL (National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning) programme and MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) initiative funded by the HRD ministry have taken online education to newer levels. NPTEL courses, taught by IIT and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) faculty, are also available on YouTube and are watched by more people than any other educational resource in the world. A Virtual Lab project funded by the ministry and undertaken by IIT Delhi is helping students across many institutions in the country get practical exposure to advanced experimental set-ups. We are going through a phase where learning needs to be fun. Students entering our institutions today will retire from their careers around 2070.

No one can predict the future to sufficiently educate them. A decade ago, nobody could have predicted that Google would be competing with the likes of BMW and Mercedes and Apple would be taking on traditional watchmakers such as Rolex. Lifelong learning and upgradation of skill sets is going to be important. We need to give our students a foundation in the basics and teach them how to learn.

R&D institutions: A significant amount of good quality research is currently happening in our higher educational institutions. For example, according to the QS University Rankings, IIT Delhi is ranked 38th in the world in terms of research impact. Every year, some of our leading IITs undertake sponsored R&D worth over Rs 400 crore. The top IITs today have more postgraduate students than undergraduate students on their rolls. Most engineering departments in leading IITs are already ranked in the global top 100, as per the recent QS rankings. Institutions such as IIT Delhi are also filing over 100 patents every year, creating valuable intellectual property for the country. One of the goals, however, is for these institutions to bring in relevance and context to their research. While our R&D output is high, we tend to perform poorly in delivery. Strengthening the translational research culture and delivering technologies and products to society are becoming important for our institutions. Industry collaborations play a key role in this respect and creation of technology parks on our campuses is becoming a necessity, as shown by IIT Madras. Many of the older IITs are building major technology parks on the campus.

Changes in the funding pattern: The older IITs require about Rs 1,000 crore per year as budget for their operations. Starting this year, the government has introduced a loan system for infrastructure funding through the Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA). Institutions need to pay back the loan over 10 years while the interest is paid by the government. While there are pros and cons of this model, it has become imperative for our leading institutions to strengthen their internal revenues so that they do not default on loan repayment. One would, therefore, expect a multitude of revenue generating measures coming from these institutions in terms of continuing education programmes, sponsored postgraduate programmes, high-value industry consultancies, alumni fundraising initiatives, increasing amounts of overhead charges for sponsored R&D, etc. Higher educational institutions in India are undergoing a major transformation. In the next 5-10 years, these institutions are expected to become global players in addition to impacting the public life through indigenous development of technologies. While India is already a global player in information technology, if due emphasis is given to the deep technology entrepreneurship activities in our higher technical institutions, India has the potential to become a technology leader in the foreseeable future. We must not underestimate the role of our higher technical institutions in this transformation. These institutions need to be nurtured and involved in our nation building. They cannot be the responsibility of only the HRD ministry. Every ministry and every industry in the country must engage them in their pursuit of excellence.

The author is the director of IIT Delhi

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